I am not sure you're getting my point. My question is about the total surface area that is affected by the heightened albedo, not the albedo increase itself (which is what you're asking about). Most albedo schemes rely on moderate increases of albedo over very large surfaces continually exposed to sun. It is not clear to me that the surface area of plankton blooms is very large relative to total ocean surface exposed over time. In that case, even a very bright albedo increase would not be a significant increase in forcing -- like having "cool roofs" only in countries that begin with "M" and on Thursdays!
If this is not helpful you needn't send it through to the group--just thinking in response. --- Fred Zimmerman Geoengineering IT! Bringing together the worlds of geoengineering and information technology GE NewsFilter: http://geoengineeringIT.net:8080 On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 9:57 AM, Andrew Lockley <[email protected]>wrote: > Fred, > > With the albedo values I've estimated from photographs, the > intervention would be capable of offsetting a significant fraction of > radiative forcing. However, there's very no evidence that this > estimated albedo correlates closely with actual albedo. Accordingly, > I'd need accurate measurements to do viable calculations - and that's > the basis of my request to the group. > > A > > On 20 August 2013 14:03, Fred Zimmerman <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Have you done the back of the envelope numbers on surface area? My first > > reaction was skepticism about the total surface area of "Bloomsdays" > (blooms > > as % of ocean surface area / all available days). Most of the area and > most > > of the earth is not covered in plankton blooms.That calculation might > tell > > you that the bloom albedo value necessary for significant radiative > forcing > > too great to be plausible, which would save you the trouble of doing > imagery > > analysis. > > > > > > > > > > --- > > Fred Zimmerman > > Geoengineering IT! > > Bringing together the worlds of geoengineering and information technology > > GE NewsFilter: http://geoengineeringIT.net:8080 > > > > > > On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 11:34 PM, Andrew Lockley < > [email protected]> > > wrote: > >> > >> I'm trying to find some data on ocean albedo with/without phytoplankton > >> blooms. This is in order to assess whether the albedo impact of Ocean > Iron > >> Fertilization is likely to be significant on the Earth's radiation > budget. > >> > >> The current data sources I have suffer from a couple of issues. > >> > >> 1. Uncalibrated albedo - Many photos of blooms are available online, but > >> these don't have an absolute brightness scale. I.E. pure white on the > photo > >> doesn't constitute 100% reflectivity. Accordingly, it's little better > than > >> guesswork to determine what the actual albedo is from this source. > >> 2. Blooms not distinguished - I've seen accurately measured albedo > ranges, > >> but these don't specifically attempt to distinguish between bloom and > >> non-bloom conditions. Accordingly, there's no way to determine from this > >> data what the difference is when a bloom is present. > >> > >> So I'm stuck. Does anyone have albedo data, or know where I could get it > >> from? Ideally, I suppose this would be from an OIF ship, but it strikes > me > >> as likely that other people will have gathered data in the course of > >> unrelated research. > >> > >> I'm really keen to run the numbers on this, but without this data I'm > not > >> able to proceed. Any ideas/help/sources/advice/datasets gratefully > received > >> . > >> > >> Thanks > >> > >> A > >> > >> -- > >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups > >> "geoengineering" group. > >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send > an > >> email to [email protected]. > >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. > >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
